Featured Author: Bratman

12/01/2016

I have been discussing a planning agent’s self-governance, both at a time and over time. To begin this third and final post (though of course I’d be pleased to respond to further queries/challenges) I’d like to back up a bit. The planning theory behind these models of self-governance supposes that a planning agent’s practical thinking is guided by norms of synchronic plan consistency and means-end coherence, as well as by a diachronic norm of stability of intention. And it sees these as norms of practical rationality. But this can seem puzzling. First, we don’t think ordinary desires need to be consistent or means-end coherent. What is special about intentions and plans? Second, these norms may seem simply to favor forms of, in the words of Niko Kolodny, psychic tidiness. But why think such tidiness is a big deal?

It seems plausible that a general disposition to conform to these norms as an aspect of one’s planning agency will have significant benefits, especially given the important coordinating roles of our plans. But what we have learned from J.J.C. Smart is that an inference from a pragmatic defense of a general disposition of thought to a claim of irrationality in the particular case is fraught. So we need at least to supplement such a two-tier pragmatic strategy.

These questions in normative philosophy have implications for descriptive/explanatory philosophy of action. The thought (championed by Joseph Raz and Niko Kolodny, and anticipated by Hugh McCann in the 1980s) that these norms are a “myth” would tend to undermine our confidence that structures of planning – as understood within the planning theory – are basic for our descriptive/explanatory philosophy of action.

My response begins with two ideas: (i) Intentions and plans have distinctive coordinating, organizing roles in our individual and social lives. In part because of these roles, they help constitute where the agent stands, and so play an important role in self-governance (as discussed in my first post). (ii) The rationality norms at issue track conditions of a planning agent’s self-governance: plan inconsistency or means-end incoherence normally baffle a planning agent’s synchronic self-governance; and certain kinds of plan instability normally baffle a planning agent’s self-governance over time.

I argued for this claim about the synchronic norms in a 2009 essay. The idea that a diachronic norm of intention stability tracks conditions of diachronic self-governance is more difficult. Here I think we need to be prepared to adjust our formulation of the norm in the light of our account of a planning agent’s diachronic self-governance. Nevertheless, one idea that will emerge, given our approach to diachronic self-governance, is that the shuffling between non-comparable options discussed in the first post will be in violation of a diachronic norm that tracks conditions of diachronic self-governance.

But now we need to ask: How does the claim that these norms track conditions of self-governance – call this the tracking thesis -- show that they are norms of practical rationality?

Here again some might be tempted by talk of the constitutive aim of agency and try to argue that this aim is self-governance and that this explains why norms that track self-governance are norms of practical rationality. However, as I said earlier, this seems to overburden our descriptive and explanatory understanding of our agency. But then how does the tracking thesis explain why these are norms of plan rationality?

My tentative answer (sketched in a forthcoming paper and a forth-existing essay) is that it does this as part of an overall and reflectively stable understanding of these norms, an understanding that is available to a reflective planning agent. A planning agent who reflects on the basic norms that guide her plan-infused practical thinking would see the tracking thesis as part of the best explanation of those norms.

This explanation would involve the following ideas: (1) The tracking thesis shows that these norms do not merely track mere mental tidiness. (2) The tracking thesis articulates an overarching commonality across these norms, a commonality in light of which they make more sense. (3) The tracking thesis shows that if (a) one has a normative reason in favor of governing one’s own life, then (b) if one has the capacity for relevant self-governance, this reason transfers to a reason in favor of conformity to the norms in the particular case. (4) A conclusion I reached in my second post is that the end of diachronic self-governance is essential to the general exercise of a planning agent’s capacity for diachronic self-governance. So, suitably generalized, the tracking thesis supports the claim that the presence of the end of diachronic self-governance is itself enjoined by diachronic plan rationality. (5) Given this end, and the plausible assumption that diachronic self-governance is a good thing, a planning agent with the capacity for diachronic self-governance will have a normative reason in favor of diachronic self-governance, and so in favor of the involved synchronic self-governance. (Here I assume that the idea of a normative reason that is germane to these reflections of a planning agent will involve both a connection to her ends and the desirability of those ends.) (6) So given this end, (3)(a) is true. (7) In this way the tracking thesis supports (3)(b), and thereby the claim of a reason of self-governance to conform to the cited norms. (This is a response to John Broome’s and Niko Kolodny's question about whether there is reason to be rational.)

My idea, then, is that a planning agent who reflects on the basic norms that guide her plan-infused practical thinking would see the tracking thesis, together with (1)-(7), as part of the best explanation of these norms. It remains possible for her to reject this entire package. But then she would not be in a position to defend in this way central modes of practical thinking characteristic of her planning agency. In the absence of some other defense, she would then be under pressure to give up these modes of thinking -- though this is something she has pragmatic reasons not to do, and is also unlikely to be something she can do simply at will. Short of this, however, she is in a position to see that her plan-infused practical thinking can be embedded within a framework that is available to her and that provides support for the application of the cited norms to particular cases, support that is over and above (but compatible with) pragmatic support for relevant general modes of thinking. So it will be reasonable – even if not strictly inescapable -- for her to retain her plan-infused practical thinking and its associated norms as part of this framework. So we need not worry that these norms are reflectively unstable in a way that would challenge the planning theory.

And – in closing – let me again thank Thomas Nadelhoffer for making it possible for me to try out these ideas on this blog.

11/30/2016

In this second post I want to reflect on issues about willpower in light of my sketch, in my previous post, of an approach to a planning agent’s self governance over time. (In the background is Holton 2009.)

Suppose you know you will be tempted to drink a lot at tonight’s party. Since you now think that would not be a good thing to do, you now form the intention to stick with one drink at the party. You know, however, that at the party your judgment will temporarily shift and you will at least initially judge that it would be better to have many drinks – though you also know that if you did give into this temptation you would later regret that.

If you stick with your prior intention there will be an important continuity in intention; in contrast, if you give into temptation there will be a break in this intention continuity. This suggests that such willpower may be a form of diachronic self-governance. However, continuity of prior intention helps constitute a planning agent’s diachronic self-governance only given synchronic self-governance at times along the way. But if your judgment shifts at the time of the party it seems that sticking with your prior intention would not be a case of synchronic self-governance: given the judgment shift, where you stand at the time of the party seems to favor drinking more.

Is there an end of the agent’s that favors relevant intention continuity and thereby can help re-shift her standpoint at the time of the party back in favor of stopping with a single drink, as she had intended? This would open up the possibility that sticking with the prior intention is indeed a case of synchronic self-governance, and so also potentially a case of diachronic self-governance.

What end? We don’t want to appeal simply to an end of intention continuity. (An idea along these lines is in work of Jordon Howard Sobel and Wlodek Rabinowicz.) Such an appeal would face a diachronic version of a worry (from Niko Kolodny) that we are simply appealing to a kind of mental tidiness. A natural proposal, instead, is to appeal to the end of diachronic self-governance itself – where that is not merely a matter of mental tidiness. This end would potentially help support willpower in the face of temptation, since such willpower would involve a continuity of intention that is itself a potential element in diachronic self-governance. And given the support from this end, the agent’s standpoint at the time of the party might well shift back into favoring willpower in a way needed for synchronic self-governance (and so for diachronic self-governance).

Indeed – as Sarah Paul has emphasized in conversation -- problems of temptation, and related problems about procrastination, pervade our lives. This supports, by way of a kind of inference to the best explanation, the conjecture that the presence of this end of diachronic self-governance is a central element in ubiquitous cases of a planning agent’s diachronic self-governance.

This suggests that the end of diachronic self-governance is essential to the general exercise of the capacity for such self-governance. And since diachronic self-governance essentially involves synchronic self-governance at times along the way, it is plausible to infer that this end of diachronic self-governance will induce an end of synchronic self-governance. So an end in favor of synchronic self-governance will also be an element in the general exercise of the capacity for such self-governance.

Some may think that the end of self-governance is a kind of necessary, constitutive end of agency quite generally. But this seems to me to overburden (to borrow a term from Barwise and Perry) our descriptive and explanatory understanding of our agency: there are just too many cases of our agency that seem not to involve guidance by that aim. The connection to an end of self-governance instead goes by way of our model of self-governance over time. Further, it is interesting to note that to get to this result we needed to go beyond a focus on synchronic self-governance and turn to diachronic self-governance.

Would this model of a planning agent’s diachronic self-governance entail that sticking with one’s intention to drink the toxin, in Gregory Kavka’s case, is in the same way a candidate for diachronic self-governance? Not if we are careful in our formulation of the model of self-governance over time. In the temptation case one anticipates later regret at giving into the temptation. So the discontinuity of intention involved in giving into temptation is a discontinuity both with earlier resolution and with expected later assessment. In contrast, the discontinuity of intention involved in abandoning, when the chips are down, the prior intention to drink toxin is only a discontinuity with earlier intention – at least on the plausible assumption that one expects that would later be glad that one did not drink the toxin. We need to be careful to understand the intention-continuity aspects of diachronic self-governance in a way that tracks this difference.

11/28/2016

Thanks to Thomas Nadelhoffer for his kind invitation to participate in this blog.

I’d be pleased to discuss any questions/challenges to work I have done in the philosophy of action. But to get the ball rolling let me frame a question that concerns an agent’s self-governance over time.

In the background is my Frankfurt-inspired approach to a planning agent’s self-governance at a time (or anyway, during a short temporal interval). [Details are in my 2007 collection of essays, my 2010 APA Address, and a forthcoming reply (available on my web page) to a recent critique from Christopher Evan Franklin. Some of the first part of this post is drawn from that reply.]

Following Frankfurt, I suppose that an agent’s self-governance involves a relevant practical standpoint, one that consists of attitudes that help constitute where she stands on certain practical issues. When this standpoint appropriately guides, the agent governs. In central cases of self-governance (1) certain attitudes play roles in the agent’s psychic economy such that their guidance constitutes the agent’s direction of action; and (2) this guidance involves practical thinking and deliberation in a way that qualifies this agential direction of action as, in particular, a form of agential governance. There is self-governance when both these conditions are satisfied in a coordinated way.

I then propose that we specify the roles in (1) by appeal to attitudes that, as a matter of function, help constitute and support the continuities and referential connections highlighted in broadly Lockean theories of personal identity over time. What is needed to satisfy both (1) and (2) are structures of attitudes that play, as a matter of function and in a coordinated way, both Lockean diachronic roles and central roles in deliberation and practical reasoning.

The next point is that relevant plan states satisfy these dual design specifications. Plan states have it as a characteristic function to constitute and support Lockean cross-temporal ties. And plan states are potential inputs to practical reasoning. This will include deliberation in which one weighs various considerations. Such weighing is commonly shaped by policy-like attitudes in favor of giving certain considerations certain weights in deliberation. And such policies about weights will frequently be in part higher-order and concern how to treat relevant desires in relevant practical reasoning.

Such policies of weights are plan states that are suitably general. Their content involves the idea of treating a consideration as a reason/as having weight; and they may be associated with certain evaluative judgments. But they need not in general involve corresponding inter-subjectively accountable evaluative judgments.

This gives us a preliminary model of a planning agent’s synchronic self governance, one that highlights guidance of thought and action by a standpoint that involves relevant plan states, including policies about weights. Such plan-infused guidance is guidance by plan attitudes that play, as a matter of function and in a coordinated way, both Lockean cross-temporal roles and roles in deliberation and practical reasoning. Finally, in order to ensure that the agent is not conflicted about relevant policies in a way that baffles self-governance, we appeal to another Frankfurtian idea, the idea of wholeheartedness or satisfaction.

Putting these ideas together, we say that when relevant policies about weights -- policies that are frequently in part higher-order, and policies with which the agent is satisfied – guide, and the agent’s relevant structure of plans is appropriately consistent and coherent, then the agent governs in the relevant domain. These are, roughly, non-homuncular sufficient conditions for a planning agent’s self-governance at a time.

And my question is: how can we best extend this to a model of a planning agent’s self-governance over time?

My initial proposal (sketched in a forthcoming paper and a forth-existing essay for a Routledge Handbook on Practical Reason) is that a planning agent’s self-governance over time involves her self-governance at times along the way together with relevant inter-connections between these forms of synchronic self-governance. What inter-connections? Here I think that we can appeal to the inter-relations between planning attitudes that are characteristic of planned temporally extended activity. These will include relevant continuity of intentions over time, relevant cross-references between intentions at different times, relevant mesh between sub-plans at different times, and relevant interdependence between intentions at a given time and past intentions and/or expectations of future intentions.

Further, I think that these cross-temporal intra-personal continuities, interconnections, inter-dependencies, and mesh between plan states over time will be importantly analogous to the inter-personal inter-connections of plan states that are characteristic of inter-personal shared intentional activity, as I understand it in my 2014 book. In this way we support the suggestive metaphor that in diachronic self-governance a planning agent is ‘acting together’ with herself over time. On this approach, then, a planning agent’s self-governance over time involves her self-governance at times along the way together with forms of intra-personal diachronic intention continuity, inter-connectedness, interdependence, and mesh that are analogous to inter-personal inter-connections characteristic of shared agency. (A fuller formulation of this idea would need to take into account that, given the hierarchical structure of plans, there can be such interconnections at a higher level despite a breakdown in interconnection at a lower level.)

An apt example is along lines discussed by John Broome (2001), though I will use an example from Sartre. Sartre’s young man decides to stay with his mother, though he sees the conflicting considerations of family loyalty and loyalty to the Free French as non-comparable. A little later he reconsiders. Since the considerations remain non-comparable, there seems no barrier to his newly deciding in favor of the Free French. But yet a little later he reconsiders and … Does nothing stand in the way of his shuffling between his mother’s house and the Free French office?

While this is not a complete answer, we can note that on the proposed, initial model of a planning agent’s self-governance over time, a case in which the young man retains his prior intention is a candidate for being a case of diachronic self-governance. In contrast, a case in which the young man abandons his prior intention and newly decides in favor of the Free French will violate a condition of diachronic self-governance. And these differing verdicts about diachronic self-governance are compatible with the recognition that the relevant considerations continue to be non-comparable.

To deepen this we would need to consider cases of potential willpower in the face of temptation. (Holton 2009) Might the continuity of intention involved in such willpower help constitute a form of diachronic self-governance? I plan to turn to this issue in my next post.

11/16/2016

Just a reminder concerning the upcoming schedule for the Featured Author series (see below for details). First, I wanted to once again thank Suzy Killmister for doing a great job stoking the philosophical fires here at Flickers during September. From manipulation and paternalism to addiction and autonomy, she hit upon a wide range of interesting issues. As always, it is nice to have Featured Authors who don't usually contribute to the blog. The more voices and opinions, the better! Hopefully, doing some time guest-blogging will encourage Killmister and other Featured Authors to participate in discussion threads here down the road.

That said, later this month, we will host another guest-blogger as Featured Author--namely, Michael Bratman (who will be posting in late November and early December). Here is Bratman's biography:

I have been at Stanford University since 1974. I was Olmsted Visiting Professor in Yale University's Program on Ethics, Politics and Economics, in Fall, 1994. My book publications are Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason (1987), Faces of Intention: Selected Essays on Intention and Agency (1999), Structures of Agency: Essays (2007), and Shared Agency: A Planning Theory of Acting Together (2014). I am also a co-editor of Introduction to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary Readings. I have been awarded an ACLS Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and fellowships from the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and the Stanford University Humanities Center. I am a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. I directed a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar for College Teachers in 1993. My paper, "Plans and Resource-Bounded Practical Reasoning," Computational Intelligence 4 (1988): 349-355, jointly written with David Israel and Martha Pollack, was the recipient of the 2008 International Foundation of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems influential paper award.

Needless to say, I am excited to see what Bratman comes up with for our readers! So, please join me in welcoming him (and once again thanking Killmister)! The Featured Author series continues to march along. Please join the show. Unfortunately, participation in the discussion threads has been waning. I am as guilty as anyone else. I realize we're all busy. But nearly each month, we are fortunate to have Featured Authors who spend their time and energy trying to generate interesting discussions about the kind of work we do. It's a shame when we pass on the opportunity to play along. So, please join me in the comment threads later this month when Bratman puts up his first post! He's the final Featured Author of 2016! Let's make blogging about agency great again!